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Broncos, Rockies, Avs bring former stars back into fold

ByADRIAN DATER The Denver Post

Posted:
06/12/2013 03:06:57 PM MDT

Patrick Roy, left, the new head coach/vice president of hockey operations for the Colorado Avalanche, smiles as he stands for a photo opportunity with Joe Sakic, the team's executive vice president of hockey operations, following an NHL hockey news conference Tuesday May 28, 2013, in Denver. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley)
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Brennan Linsley
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In Denver sports, what was once old is new again.

It started with the Broncos and the hiring of the greatest name in franchise history, John Elway, to run the team. Then, last fall, the Rockies named former shortstop Walt Weiss as manager, and he hired former Rockies slugger and teammate Dante Bichette as his hitting instructor. More recently, the Avalanche looked to stars of a more glorious past to rescue the franchise, hiring Patrick Roy as coach and Joe Sakic as de facto general manager.

With the Nuggets in search of a new coach and GM, it wouldn't shock anyone, with the way things are going in Denver, if they turn back the clock and bring in a former star player to help on the management side. After all, the Elway experiment has been a rousing success, Weiss has the Rockies playing better than .500 ball coming off a 98-loss season and the hirings of Roy and Sakic, both Hall of Famers, have made the Avs relevant again in the local sports discussion.

Having former players in key managerial roles for three of the big four sports in town is rare. Probably the closest a city came to doing something similar was in 1988 in Philadelphia, when the Phillies (John Vukovich), Flyers (Paul Holmgren) and 76ers (Matt Goukas) -- were coached or managed by former players. But Vukovich managed for only nine games at the end of the season after Lee Elia was fired.

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The burning question for Denver's sports teams: Are they living too much in the past? Or is this perhaps a new template for pro franchises that are struggling?

"I'd like to think it's more of that last one," Bichette said. "I think in mine and Walt's case, we both know how it works here at Coors Field and how players feel here, the pros and cons, and maybe they can relate to that more than, say, someone not as familiar. But when all is said and done, we have to do the job. Nobody can just coast on their reputation."

The hiring of former great players as coaches or GMs is nothing new. Bart Starr coached the Green Bay Packers. Pete Rose managed the Cincinnati Reds. Dan Issel coached the Nuggets. The Boston Celtics had a succession of former players as coaches from the 1960s through the 1990s, and former Pittsburgh Penguins star Mario Lemieux has been the principal owner of the Penguins for years.

What's unusual in Denver is that three of the big four pro teams went back to the past at around the same time.

The Broncos' John Fox is the only current Denver "big four" pro coach or manager who never played for the home team, but he believes what the Rockies and Avalanche have done is a refreshing trend. And everyone knows who his boss is: Elway, the most famous athlete in the history of the state.

"I don't think it's as easy as people think, these guys wanting to come back with their old team in a new role," Fox said. "To come back in and risk all that, to be in that limelight again in a new high-pressure role, that's not something those kinds of guys do lightly. I think anytime somebody does it and has success, it opens more peoples' eyes to doing it. I think John showed people it can be done, with the kind of job he's done."

When the Rockies hired Weiss straight off Regis Jesuit High School's baseball field to succeed Jim Tracy and brought back fan favorite Bichette to coach the hitters, some mocked them as naive. After all, Weiss had never managed in the big leagues and Bichette had never coached. But the team has performed far better than expected, and shortstop Troy Tulowitzki credits both.

"I think it shows the pride they have for the organization. It's like they talked to their kids and said: 'Hey, I played for the Rockies. Those people are my friends,' " Tulowitzki said. "They associate with that organization, so what better way to show that then to go back and work for them? In this case, they know the difficulties that Coors Field can bring for us. They have dealt with it, so in our case I think it's very smart.

"But, in other cases, it's about being connected with the organization. I mean, it's kind of hard to think about Ryne Sandberg coaching the Phillies. When you think about Ryne Sandberg, you think about the Cubs, and why would you want him to get away from the organization?"

As for the Avalanche, the reconnection with its glory years began with the recent promotion of Sakic to executive vice president of hockey operations after a last-place season. Then, late last month, Sakic recruited Roy to take over as coach, which came with a front-office title.

Although Sakic had only two years of management experience, as an adviser, Roy partially owned, coached and managed a junior team in Quebec from 2005 to this year. And as Roy joked in his introductory news conference, when the question of experience, or lack thereof, came up, "every single NHL coach was a rookie at one time."

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